Two weeks ago a Wings scoop caused quite a furore to erupt around the SNP’s ham-fisted and corruptly-motivated attempts to increase BAME and disabled representation at this year’s Holyrood election.
We’ve always been opposed to what were until recently known as “quotas”, and prior to that “positive discrimination”, but have now been cunningly rebranded as “diversity and inclusion” because that’s a much more difficult thing to say you object to.
It’s easy to make an honourable-sounding case against any form of “discrimination”, because decent and civilised people are taught to automatically think of discrimination as a bad thing, even if you put “positive” in front of it.
So the word “quotas” was adopted to move the concept from a pejorative term to a neutral noun – objecting to “quotas” doesn’t sound intolerant, any more than objecting to (say) “procedures” does. So that’s fine, because you can still discuss it like adults without too much unpleasantness.
But those pushing the agenda got smarter still by changing the name again. If you say you object to “diversity and inclusion”, you sound like a monster and a racist, because diversity and inclusion are plainly good things – no decent person wants to live in a monoculture, or to exclude anybody from society – and so the debate is immediately drowned out by self-righteous tossers screaming “BIGOT!” and “NAZI!” at everyone.
And yet in the context of social policy the three phrases mean the exact same thing. They’re all systems for overriding raw democracy so as to increase the representation of selected groups at the expense of other groups, for one reason or another.
(Sometimes it’s ostensibly just penance for historical wrongs, while at other times it’s supposedly for economic benefits, and so on.)
And while the proponents of those systems will openly argue that the only group being disadvantaged is straight white men so it’s all fine (because nobody likes straight white men and anyone standing up for them can be easily dismissed as a “gammon” for lots of woke points and Twitter likes), it isn’t even remotely close to the truth.
Because in “diversity and inclusion”, some groups are a lot more included than others.
The two main centres of infection for the woke entryist poison currently disfiguring the SNP are Stirling and Aberdeen, where they coalesce around two Westminster MPs – Twitler Youth gauleiter Alyn Smith and the worryingly unhinged Kirsty Blackman.
In recent months Wings has documented numerous attempts by the faction (which is chiefly characterised by its hyper-extremist and fundamentalist version of transgender ideology) to gerrymander and fix the party’s internal election processes to ensure that its disciples – who are enormously unpopular among the grassroots membership and have repeatedly failed to win by playing fair – get selected as candidates.
It’s our sad duty to report this fact to you, readers: our experience of sending Freedom Of Information requests to the Scottish Government is basically that the more answers you get from them, the less information you end up having.
In an attempt to freshen up its usual panel of tired and tiresome politicians and pundits, last night’s Question Time (ostensibly from an oddly-vague location in “the North East”) featured moderately-known circus fortune-teller Gypsy Rose Petulengro, crossing her palm with silver for some analysis in a short break from one of her celebrated seances.
The clip above was her take on whether Nicola Sturgeon would resign if either of the current inquiries found that she’d systematically and repeatedly lied to Parliament and broken the Ministerial Code, and the strange thing about it was that for someone who was professing to be looking into the future, she didn’t even appear to know the basic pertinent facts of the present or the past.
Because while pretty much every journalist, pundit and legal expert reporting the case agrees that the amendment made to the Section 11 order protecting the anonymity of the complainers in the Alex Salmond case is an important and significant one, it hasn’t impressed the only person whose opinion actually matters: Andy Wightwash.
The Spectator’s application to the High Court for a variation of the anonymity order in HM Advocate vs Alexander Salmond has just finished. It seems to have been agreed by all parties that Lady Dorrian will now amend her order to read thus:
“An order at common law and in terms of section 11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, preventing publication of the names and identity and any information likely to disclose the identity of the complainers in the case of HMA v Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond, as such complainers in those proceedings.”
We suppose this is a sort of compliment, in at least two senses.
The second of them, of course, being the sheer surprise of some people at discovering that not everyone is as cynical and devious as they evidently are themselves.
Once again we’ve clipped the entire question and “answer” so you can see nothing’s been taken out of context, but the important bit is from 2m 30s to 2m 53s.
Davidson’s question was quite complex but boiled down to why Nicola Sturgeon hadn’t properly recorded details and minutes of meetings on Scottish Government business, in direct breach of the Ministerial Code.
That’s a valid question in itself, to which there was no meaningful response, but it was what Sturgeon said right at the end that raised our eyebrows.
First Minister’s Questions was very interesting today. Ruth Davidson had some tricky ones which Nicola Sturgeon simply didn’t even attempt to look like she was answering, and we might come back to one of them in particular a little later on.
But Jackie Baillie’s were even more pointed, especially this one:
With our trademark scrupulous fairness we’ve included the full question and answer, and they raise a whole series of issues, but if you’re in a hurry the key part we want to talk about right now is between 0.18 and 0.26.
robertkknight on Looking up at the stars: “Holyrood rammed full of yoons of varying political shades and persuasions, who frankly couldn’t run a bath let alone a…” Mar 11, 12:51
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “The first verifiable recorded instance of the phrase, “The penny dropped” of which I’m aware is that cited in the…” Mar 11, 12:24
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “No. Prior to indyref we were an equal partner in that wonderful family of nations remember? In a voluntary union…” Mar 11, 11:42
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““no need to withdraw from something that does not exist” My exact response to every one of those crowdfunding grifters,…” Mar 11, 11:34
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Could be worse, Onlooker. Isn’t the Indy movement sprinkled with simpering pathetic fools who have renamed themselves ‘Hamassa’?” Mar 11, 11:30
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Does that mean the UK may not have only two days of gas left? OK. I’ll answer. Yes it does.…” Mar 11, 11:27
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Dinna be daft, x. Penny Falls machines, from which the term originates, didn’t exist before 1964.” Mar 11, 11:20
diabloandco on Looking up at the stars: “The Lib Dums proved themselves duplicitous during Jim Wallace’s time as leader. Can someone tell me why , when some…” Mar 11, 11:19
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Aye, Geri, you do well to warn ordinary Scots about Baphomet. Any signs of your new hereditary king? I read…” Mar 11, 11:14
Onlooker on Looking up at the stars: “I liked when the simpering pathetic fool renamed himself ‘Hamala’ during the last yank election and ran off to the…” Mar 11, 10:45
agentx on Looking up at the stars: “James Che says: 11 March, 2026 at 9:23 am One day the penny will drop ————————————– It’s only taken 319…” Mar 11, 10:27
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “They’ve been referred to as Lib Dumbs for over a decade at least. Remember the tuition fee fiasco where the…” Mar 11, 09:41
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “The so called Scottish Elections are a farce, The devolved governance sent to Scotland under the laws of the England…” Mar 11, 09:30
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “One day the penny will drop, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England will wake up to the historical records and realise…” Mar 11, 09:23
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “Peter McAvoy, English votes for English laws, The Anglo- Irish Agreement in 1800, [ Scotland not Included ] set up…” Mar 11, 09:13
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “Did anyone ever seriously doubt that the LDs, at any level, in any constituency would sell out to anyone for…” Mar 11, 08:46
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: ““Lib Dumb” – you’re so witty and clever James, will you be at the fringe this year? Northcode has told…” Mar 11, 06:14
Young Lochinvar on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “HMcH @ 4.06 You have to be joking “old boy”! Scotchland Office seat warmers like yerself would probably be exempt…” Mar 11, 05:03
James Barr Gardner on Looking up at the stars: “Bring back Wee Willie Rennie, he was funnier…….” Mar 11, 02:46
Peter McAvoy on Looking up at the stars: “Will they cooperate to oppose the planned scrapping of jury trials in England and Wales,or remind Westminster of how these…” Mar 11, 01:38
Cynicus on Looking up at the stars: “Geri says: 10 March, 2026 at 9:45 pm “I dunno how he has the nerve to even collect a salary…” Mar 11, 01:12
Cynicus on Looking up at the stars: “Scot Finlayson says: 10 March, 2026 at 9:18 pm, `A carpetbagger is a derogatory name term for an outsider….. ..It…” Mar 11, 00:54
James on Looking up at the stars: “There’s a dark underbelly in the Lib Dumb movement. “Movement” being the operative word. Speaking of which – where’s Adrian…” Mar 10, 23:12
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “I dunno how he has the nerve to even collect a salary after he said Scotland shouldn’t be allowed to…” Mar 10, 21:45
Iain More on Looking up at the stars: “I have nothing to add to what has been said already although to refer to him as a wank stain…” Mar 10, 21:25
Scot Finlayson on Looking up at the stars: “Hamilton is an English carpetbagger, `A carpetbagger is a derogatory term for an outsider—historically a Northerner in the post-Civil War…” Mar 10, 21:18
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Dear Lord, that man never learns, does he? We’re doing it for you, Anas! If I were Anas Sarwar, I’d…” Mar 10, 20:38
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “It’ll dawn on the electorate one day that they’re really all just one big party.” Mar 10, 20:34
